Isaiah 3:1-8

A Coming Leadership Crisis

3:1 Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies

is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah

every source of security, including

all the food and water,

3:2 the mighty men and warriors,

judges and prophets,

omen readers and leaders,

3:3 captains of groups of fifty,

the respected citizens,

advisers and those skilled in magical arts,

and those who know incantations.

3:4 The Lord says, “I will make youths their officials;

malicious young men will rule over them.

3:5 The people will treat each other harshly;

men will oppose each other;

neighbors will fight.

Youths will proudly defy the elderly

and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected.

3:6 Indeed, a man will grab his brother

right in his father’s house and say,

‘You own a coat –

you be our leader!

This heap of ruins will be under your control.’

3:7 At that time the brother will shout,

‘I am no doctor,

I have no food or coat in my house;

don’t make me a leader of the people!’”

3:8 Jerusalem certainly stumbles,

Judah falls,

for their words and their actions offend the Lord;

they rebel against his royal authority.

Isaiah 3:2

3:2 the mighty men and warriors,

judges and prophets,

omen readers and leaders,

Isaiah 25:4-7

25:4 For you are a protector for the poor,

a protector for the needy in their distress,

a shelter from the rainstorm,

a shade from the heat.

Though the breath of tyrants is like a winter rainstorm,

25:5 like heat in a dry land,

you humble the boasting foreigners.

Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside,

so he causes the song of tyrants to cease.

25:6 The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain.

At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine –

tender meat and choicest wine.

25:7 On this mountain he will swallow up

the shroud that is over all the peoples,

the woven covering that is over all the nations;

Isaiah 25:1

25:1 O Lord, you are my God!

I will exalt you in praise, I will extol your fame.

For you have done extraordinary things,

and executed plans made long ago exactly as you decreed.

Jeremiah 39:4-7

39:4 When King Zedekiah of Judah and all his soldiers saw them, they tried to escape. They departed from the city during the night. They took a path through the king’s garden and passed out through the gate between the two walls. Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. 39:5 But the Babylonian army chased after them. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho and captured him. They took him to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon at Riblah in the territory of Hamath and Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on him there. 39:6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon also had all the nobles of Judah put to death. 39:7 Then he had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains to be led off to Babylon.

Jeremiah 52:24-27

52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 52:25 From the city he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers, seven of the king’s advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens for military service, and sixty citizens who were discovered in the middle of the city. 52:26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 52:27 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed at Riblah in the territory of Hamath.

So Judah was taken into exile away from its land.